


Scales and Sand

by Lywinis



Series: Hoist the Colors -- A Pirates of the Caribbean/Marvel AU [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-05
Updated: 2013-04-05
Packaged: 2017-12-07 14:29:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/749571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lywinis/pseuds/Lywinis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce is the sea, the sea is Bruce. Like the tides, he is inexorable.</p>
<p>“It’s my nature. Would you love me as anything but what I am?”</p>
<p>―Tia Dalma to Davy Jones</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scales and Sand

 The waves lap upon the shore, upon every shore, and he felt them. He knew where the storms raged, could feel the angry swirl of water as the malestroms took their tithes of fish and sailors alike. It was bottled in him, compressed into the form of a man who walked the bottom of the ocean, circled with fish and given a wide berth by the behemoths that lived beneath the waves.

 It was a wonder the force of pushing all of that eldritch magic into such a small form didn’t make it explode. Such was the way of magic, however.

 He called himself Bruce, for he liked the way it fell off his tongue, the syllables sounding strange to his ears as he heard them spat from one sailor to another. One was not quick enough with his line, and the word was barked at him.

 Bruce just liked the way it sounded, so he took it for his own. After so long, it was only right that he take a name.

 He did not know what happened to the sailor. Perhaps he drowned. Perhaps he was killed in battle. Bruce did not ponder such things. He walked on, his hair curling in the salt water about his head like a cloud.

 Flashes of color in the water meant that he had found more life. Fins, speckled with green and red and gold and silver, darted around him. He was pleased, for he did like the mermaids. He’d created them to be pleasing, after all. His eyes grew dark, however, when they struck at him, trying to drive him away.

 He frowned. Did they not know their master?

 His voice was the roar of a swell, and the sound drove them into the mud, leaving them trampled and broken. A few limped away, battered. He let them go, his gaze angry.

 Silly creatures. Not particularly smart, although that was perhaps his doing as well.

 A flicker of silver caught his gaze, and he turned. A single mer was left, a male from the looks of it, and he swam towards Bruce. The sea god stilled, watching him. Would he be as foolish as his peers?

 It turned out that he was not.

 Curious golden eyes peered at him from the murk, and the merman gestured up, toward the sunlight and land. Bruce nodded and floated up, the merman swirling in lazy circles around his slight body.

 Bruce surfaced, in a small grotto that seemed to house the colony of mermaids and their mates. He levered himself up onto the sandbar in the middle of the grotto with ease.

 The merman followed behind, but did not breach, paddling just shy of Bruce’s feet where they dangled in the water.

 “You will not come and join me, little one?” Bruce asked. “You seemed eager to talk to me before.”

 The merman seemed uncertain, sharp fangs taking his lower lip between his teeth.

 “I give you my oath, I will not hurt you, so long as you do not strike at me, like your mates.” Bruce held out his hand.

 He was pleased when the merman took it, and Bruce levered him up onto the sandbar with him. He watched as the merman’s tail pattered against the sand for a moment, before it melted against the bones, forming into serviceable feet.

 “Now that, I did not teach you,” he said. The merman had the courtesy to look down, unashamed of his bareness, but perhaps ashamed that he’d upset the god. Bruce tilted his chin up. “Do not hide from me, little one.”

 The merman swallowed, turning his eyes up. Bruce smiled, pressing his lips to the merman’s as a reward. The golden eyes widened, and the mer clutched him as though he were life itself.

 For, in a sense, Bruce was.

 Bruce pulled back, and the merman’s face was rapturous.

 “I shall call you Kurt,” he said, using the old mer tongue for ‘sunlight’.

 “…why?”

 “Because you need a name.”

 “What is a name?”

 “It is so I may know you. When others call you by that name, they will reinforce that you belong to me, because I have named you, and I love you.”

 Perhaps it was fickle of him, but to see the merman light up as he did brought pleasure to Bruce, and he pressed him down to the warm sand, kissing and tasting.

 “Do you have a name?” Kurt asked, arching against Bruce’s blunt fingers, his breath a gasp.

 “I have many,” Bruce replied, dancing across skin and scales like water, for he was. “Pelagius, Derya, Charybdis, Aigéan, as many as you can think of, even just for parts of me. For you know me, don’t you, Kurt?”

 Kurt gasped again, spilling over into the god’s fingers as Bruce laughed and licked the salt from the merman’s stomach.

 “My lord,” he said, his voice reverent. Bruce sidled next to him on the sand bar, stretching out his shorter length against Kurt’s.

 “Bruce will do,” he said. Kurt made a low noise, pressing his lips to Bruce’s chest.

 Yes. Bruce would do.

**Author's Note:**

> More things I have written for our AU. I'm slowly working through things. I'll be posting all of my drabbles and one-shots here, and if I can muster up the gumption, I can see about writing up the plot into a cohesive story once it's done.
> 
> If you'd like to read more, please, follow us at marvel-infinity.tumblr.com! We're always taking applications for new players as well.
> 
> For a full breakdown of the characters and the headcanon behind them: http://marvel-infinity.tumblr.com/aupirates
> 
> For Bruce's personal headcanon: http://avenging-anger.tumblr.com/Pirates
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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